Feeling like I'm beginning to not cope - marriage issues

[bean812]

I'm dealing with a few issues in my marriage and tonight things have escalated. My husband has been in a mood with me, giving me the cold shoulder for a few days. I'm quite used to that every now and then. Tonight he was rude to me about the dinner I'd help to prepare - I explained why I was upset and he just get so defensive and says I'm ridiculous.
Things escalated later on - I calmly asked if we could sit down and talk- he let me explain my side of things and he just interrupted me and said I'm 'just a big baby' and I'm always looking for an argument. This is so far from the truth. I just want him to sometimes understand how I feel about something. He just kept saying I'm a baby, and our sons know it, and they know he's the caring one. It was all completely untrue. I just saw red (again, very unlike me) and started shouting, defending myself. He said - oh there we go - and brought I'm some deeply private stuff I'd told him in confidence about my childhood and upbringing - in the midst of the argument. I felt furious and pushed him, so he took his phone out and started filming me..!
I'm feeling very delicate emotionally at the moment due to a recent pregnancy loss which really shook me - I've tried to carry on as normal but it has been so hard - none of the above is like me at all. I feel shocked, hurt and just heartbroken. He's always sort of taunting me to get upset or cross and then blames me for it all. Our boys didn't see the later bit, but did see us being annoyed with each other over the dinner table, even though I tried to ask him to stop and to talk about it later.
When things are like this I always feel like he's trying to make things worse so I eventually leave. It's awful. We've been married for 13 years and he has had a bit of a stubborn temper/attitude like this off and on for a while now.

Don't try to fix things, you can't. Counselling is a good idea, but if you can I wouldn't tell him. I know my XH would have used that against me and said it showed I was the one with mental issues or the one that needed fixing. He actually suggested marriage counselling at one stage, but said I needed to do it to fix myself.

XH wouldn't move out and I couldn't afford to, we seperated under one roof for a while until we could sell and move out. It was bad, but not much worse than it had been before I told him I was done and it was easier to cope mentally knowing there was now a finite limit on how long I had to go on living with my abuser.

I saw a 'man' I was friends with on social media post a video of his girlfriend hitting him with an item recently and telling him to get out of the house, he was screaming at her that she was an abuser. He got so much sympathy and she got absolutely slated.

Luckily for her she had actually secretly recorded it all too, he was saying awful things to her, some of it about her dead child and was laughing at her, that's what led to her hitting him.

In a relationship like this OP your whole life could change in an instant, it could be tonight or tomorrow. Every day you stay with him is a risk. He could cause you to completely lose it. You could end up doing jail time over him. He could strangle you to death and then your kids have no mother, or no father if he's jailed. Maybe he'd get off with it if he killed you because he'd say he was defending himself against your abuse. One of your children could be harmed. Every single day is a risk. You have to get out to protect yourself and your children, and if you won't do it for you then you HAVE to do it for your children. You don't get a say or choice in that matter. You are obligated to protect them from this.

You can't just talk to an abuser and get them to stop abusing you.
You can't reason with them and get them to see their point of view.
This man hates you.

I've thought about live if I leave for a long time. I don't want my children to have a broken home, but I don't want whatever this is.

This is WORSE than a broken home, not only is it broken, it's abusive and it's toxic and it's dangerous.

I feel sick to my stomach of these bastards.
Of course if I said exactly how I feel about him, my comment would never pass.
You need to leave, OP. I don't have advice, sorry, but I understand what this must be like. 💐

What comes across to me is the way you seem to be begging for crumbs and trying all the time to reason with him and placate him. He threw away your card and chocolates . You knew this yet you still gave him a card. Why? He’s got you exactly where he wants you. He’s a nasty controlling and abusive man. He’s destroying your self worth. Just please get out. This will never improve because he treats you with contempt not love .

It's not on to push but look up reactive abuse

You deserve someone who cares if you're upset. He sounds just like my ex

Ps your post has made me grateful my ex walked out when I was pregnant

I wish more than anything he'd walk out. He never will.

I know, I probably sound pathetic in some of my posts, wanting him to change, trying fix things. I hope counselling will help me know in myself it's not going to work. In life I'm a strong, capable woman, but this is breaking me now. I've thought awful things in the last few days and I've hardly slept. I can see how women can just end it all, I really can. I can't do that because of my kids. I can't leave them with him and look like the crazy one to his friends and family.
I feel flooded with memories of all types of times where he's been awful to me - as if I didn't realise at the time. I also feels annoyed with my younger self to not get out sooner. But I have to remind myself I would have my wonderful kids. It's the only thing that's keeping me slightly together right now.

I'm so worried that I'm the one in the wrong. I know I'm not but my reaction was awful. He told me last night that I'm losing my memory, it's complete rubbish.

@bean812 sweetheart, I've just read all of your posts and I'm seriously worried for you. It's not you. I want to shout it - IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S HIM! He is treating you appallingly and has no empathy for you whatsoever. I wish I could reach through the screen and speed things up for you, but I can't. I hope the counselling helps and I'm a BIG fan of counselling, but honestly I think you need to get to a place of acceptance that this is over and in your own and the children's best interests you need to start the legal balls rolling to separate.

I am concerned that he could turn really nasty if he knows you're planning that though so I urge caution.
Please confide in a trusted friend or family member who can support you and provide a bolt hole if necessary.
Please contact Women's Aid and take their advice over how to do this safely.
And please keep posting. We are here.

And once again - IT'S NOT YOU. YOU'VE DONE NOTHING WRONG, NOTHING.

Wishing you well.

Please go and see your GP today and tell them about him and how it’s making you have suicidal ideation but that your children are your protective factors and that you would never do it. I think you need support, but not only that, it will form a paper trail of the abuse which will be helpful in a restraining order and a possession order to get him out of the house.

Reactive abuse is well known and it happened to me, I never shouted like that again at anyone after I needed the relationship.

Please make an appointment today, they may be able to offer therapy and other organisations that can help you.

Seek advice from the Women’s Aid first today perhaps? And the domestic abuse helpline? They will be more experienced in which order to do things.

Only you know if that marriage is worth trying to save but please no matter what happens in the future: keep your hands off of him. No matter what happens. Not only is it the right thing to do anyway but if you divorced and he has footage of you being violent you could be in trouble. Plus what kind of example is that for your kids? Good luck.

@bean812

It all sounds awful now but I guarantee once you’ve left you will realise it was much worse. I massively minimised my exH’s behaviour - to myself and even as I told friends and family. I was so desensitised to it that one close friend cried as I told her about his behaviour and I was almost blasé. I had been so accustomed to being told I was overreacting, angry, psycho- I didn’t feel entitled to be upset by anything he did. Now after more than a year I am the opposite - if I overhear someone else arguing I get a lurch of anxiety, I am just not used to that level of conflict that I used to live with daily.

Is there anyone in real life that you can confide in? Can you stay with family? Remember just bc the kids haven’t seen him hit you doesn’t mean they haven’t been exposed to abuse. Witnessing psychological abuse of a parent is abuse (under legislation here in NZ where I am but I’m sure it’s similar in the UK).

Has he ever acknowledged that he’s hit or strangled you, do you have any emails
or texts? Any abusive texts? I had barrages of texts that he would dismiss as just his temper- the “red mist” as he called it 🤡 but to any external observer it was quite clear it was sustained abuse.

It isn't worth saving and it can't be saved even if she wanted to.
He has strangled her and hit her on the head with a bottle.
He's trying to drive her insane.
This man hates her

Thought I'd post on here as I haven't for a while. The good news is that I'm in touch with my counsellor and am arranging some more sessions.
Things have been very up and down. Things seem to go back to normal and everything is calm, and then suddenly I'm being shouted at and everything I say is wrong. Like yesterday I was telling my husband about mine and my dc's trip.into the next town, and he looked so uninterested. But when my kids speak, he's all light and lovely and interested. When i speak he starts getting so annoyed that his hands actually start shaking and his face goes pale. I'm literally just talking about our day, in front of our kids. Nothing argumentative, nothing contentious. Normal things.

Now, after shouting at me and me really trying not to react, I'm left to feel like an awful person - look how I've 'caused an argument' Is this really normal??

I feel so alone and feel like I can't tell anyone in real life. Only my counsellor.

What do you reckon would happen if you told someone in real life? How would you respond to a friend telling you something like this? Someone to support you oyher than a councellor may well be the first step you need to take in finding your ground again.

Pale and shaking with hatred…

You are in danger and need to leave immediately. Call a women’s shelter right now and tell them everything!

Oh love.

I had one of these. The shaking face. Even thinking of it now makes the hairs on my back go up.

I told someone professional that he’d put his hands on my neck in an argument. That was enough to trigger an SS referral and my cue to finally get the fuck out.

I hadn’t thought it was that bad. But it WAS that bad, and tbh yours sounds even worse.

You can leave. You don’t need permission. It won’t get better. It will get worse until someone gets hurt.

Leaving is HARD and you’ll have less money and have to tell people you broke up. But six months from now that hardest part will be over and you won’t have to walk on eggshells any more.

He is a gaslighting, abusive dickhead, and sounds potentially dangerous. And no, none of this is your fault. All you were doing was describing your day with the dc. How on earth would that make him go pale and shake with anger unless he is a complete psycho? Please get away from him, OP.

There is no “potential”. It’s a certainty, he has already harmed her.

OP, get out, now, while you’re still in one piece.

Please don't waste your life, OP.

Leaving him will be upsetting but you have a wonderful future waiting for you and your children.

I guess I just feel really embarrassed, that I'm with this person. That I seemed to have made a huge error of judgement. That I'll be a failure if I break up.our marriage. That it'll look like it's all my fault. That he'll tell everyone that I'm mad, I'm crazy, I'm a lunatic. That's what stops me.

Of course if a friend told me this was happening to them I'd be very supportive.

I know. But that's what happened. He was literally shaking with anger and going pale because of what I was saying. He later told me it was how I was saying it.

I actually asked him to go for a bit so I could just speak with the kids and he just wouldn't. He wouldn't go. I practically begged him in front of the kids.

Can I ask what others would have done in that situation? What was I meant to do? I didn't want to leave the room myself and leave my kids with an emotionally unbalanced dad.

Why is it that we take on other people’s shame? There’s nothing for you to feel embarrassed about - the only person who should be ashamed about his behaviour is him.

You’re not crazy. You’re not a lunatic. Even if people believe you are it wouldn’t make it true. But most rational people understand that marriages don’t always work out and that women have very good reasons for leaving.

One of my friends had a severe mental breakdown when her marriage ended. Her ex was gleeful at what he saw was proof of her craziness but we could all see as evidence of how badly she was suffering from his cruelty and gaslighting. Give the people who love you some credit.

Leaving takes so much courage.

You won’t be a failure if you leave, if this was happening to a friend you wouldn’t think they’re a failure. It would be the opposite and I can assure you that the people that matter will see that. The ones that don’t, if there are such people- fuck them. Does it matter what they think?
take the time you need, gather your strength but you need to walk away before he seriously hurts you. Sending hugs